A92140:440
A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved
A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, the Belgic Arminians, Socinians, and other authors contending for lawless liberty, or licentious toleration of sects and heresies. / By Samuel Rutherfurd professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews.A free disputation against pretended liberty of conscience tending to resolve doubts moved by Mr. John Goodwin, John Baptist, Dr. Jer. Taylor, the Belgick Arminians, Socinians, and other authors contending for lawlesse liberty, or licentious toleration of sects and heresies. / By Samuel Rutherfurd professor of divinity in the University of St. Andrews.
London: printed by R.I. for Andrew Crook, 1649
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
1 This is against appeals that are clear, Deut. 17. In all matters of controversy, when in the highest Court where a mans head, whether he be a false Prophet, or any other, was at the stake, the Judges, v. 11. were to judge according to the sentence of the law, and they proceed upon witness, Deut. 17. 6. God should by this declare law, proof and witnesses useless, for the Lord from Heaven condemns the man.
1 This is against appeales that are cleare, Deut. 17. In all matters of controversie, when in the highest Court where a mans head, whether hee be a false Prophet, or any other, was at the stake, the Judges, v. 11. were to judge according to the sentence of the law, and they proceed upon witnesse, Deut. 17. 6. God should by this declare law, proof and witnesses uselesse, for the Lord from Heaven condemnes the man.
2 Jeremiah, and all the Prophets that were killed and stoned, never sought the benefit of the law, nor said, give us a •ury from heaven, an oracle for to take away our head, the Prophets never accuse Kings or Judges in persecuting the Prophets, that they consulted not the oracle, ere they rejected the Prophet.
3 This had been a well settled law to try all Prophets, who speak from God, and who speak the visions of their own head, all should have passed the grand Jury of an immediate oracle from heaven, and by this there should not have been a false Prophet in all Judea but the Judge might have discovered him, but God never gives this character of an Idolater, Blasphemer, or a false Prophet: The Oracle of Urim hath blacked him as an impostor. But divers other characters the Lord gave. As 1. If he speak not according to the Law. 2. If the good he foretell, never comes to pass. 3. If he eale the wound with smooth words. 4. If he strengthen the arms of the wicked. When as yet God had made no standing law, he was consulted, and God gave sentence against the man that had broken the Sabbath and that blasphemed but their consulting with God presupposeth by the law of nature,